Okay, y’all…if you follow me on my Facebook Fan Page or on YouTube, you saw yesterday that I’ve decided it’s time to finish what I started 5 years ago. It’s time to lose ANOTHER 100 pounds.

No idea what I’m talking about? Here’s the update I shared:

So there are only so many nutritional changes I can make. I haven’t gone back to my old ways (which is why I have kept off 125 pounds for 5 years). I plan to reign in the snacking and get back to basics, so I’m on protein shakes only through Friday. That plan, given to me by my nutritionist, always makes me appreciate healthy food a bit more by the time I’m done with it. 🙂

Exercise is also coming back into my life. Slowly. This week, I’ll walk once around my block and do 10 minutes on the bike. Next week, two laps around the block and 15 minutes on the bike…and so on.

Today is going to be quite a challenge. I’m weaning myself off Ambien and didn’t sleep a stitch last night. I dozed a few times…but that’s it. I feel like I could drink a silo full of coffee right now, y’all. Bring it to me.

I charged up the FitBit last night and I’m wearing it this morning. Seriously, can one of you just follow me around and hug me all day today…because I am so damn tired! LOL. I’m bound to need a little more encouragement for sure. Ugh.

If you’re doing your own challenge, feel free to share it here by making a comment. The entire Hot Mess community is behind you. Let’s do this!

Hey, y’all…

Well, first…I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted on this blog. It’s amazing to me how time gets closer and closer together the older we get. If that makes any sense. It feels like maybe four months since I wrote here. I see that it’s longer.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and it all stems from something that took hold in my head last year: the desire to beat my insomnia with something other than a pill. My quest for normal sleep has led me to a lot of places, but it first led me back to therapy. We all have that little voice inside of us…that gut instinct, intuition, or whatever you want to call it that rises up and just knows what is the right way and what is the wrong way. My voice led me right to my therapist.

I’m a strong believer in reaching out for help when you need it. I’ve seen many therapists in my lifetime, but I still had the phone number for the last one…and I like her a lot, so I picked up the phone. If you’ve never been to a therapist before, it feels like it takes forever at the start because you spend the first several sessions explaining why you’re there and what you’ve been dealing with. It was nice not to have to go through my own ancient history again. All I had to do was explain that I wanted to work on curing my insomnia without sleep medication.

I made huge progress in only our second session together. Through the questions she asked and the answers I gave, I finally realized where my insomnia is coming from. Believe it or not, I’ve never been able to pinpoint the WHY behind it all…until now. I realized that my insomnia is deeply rooted in fear, and that I…somewhere inside…do not feel safe. I haven’t felt safe in quite a long time, actually.

I won’t go into great detail here, but I can share that shortly after Hot Mess Hubby and I were married we moved to a new place together. I did not feel safe in this place. We didn’t realize the issue until we had moved in, and we could not afford to move. We lived there for nearly two years until we moved to Texas. It was more than enough time for me to learn to live with my ears open and my mind ready to react if I needed to. I started taking Tylenol PM to go to sleep…and the rest is history.

Now here I am, ready to fix it. Finally. Here’s the plan:

• Gradually reduce my sleep medication each week
• Continue with the meditation practices I started months ago (I totally thought I blogged about that!)
• Continue to learn about the body’s chakras
• Continue to learn about how energy from others and energy around me affects me…because it really does. Maybe not for everyone, but it’s definitely true for me!
• Eventually get to a place where I can try yoga. But I can’t right now.

Why? If you follow my Facebook fan page, you know that I’ve been traveling a lot lately and I’ve really put my body through the wringer. Mainly, I’ve torn the meniscus in my left knee. Additionally, I’ve been suffering from mega painful muscle spasms in my lower back and right leg…and I fainted in a restaurant last week.  Seriously, it’s time to reel in the crazy just a bit. Jusssst a bit.

If you’ve taken yourself off sleep meds or have experience with anything I’ve mentioned here, feel free to weigh in. I’d love to hear about what you’ve done, what your tips and best practices are, and any tidbits of wisdom you have to share. Let’s hear it…because I need all the help I can get, and you’ll always be my tribe.

Sorry I took so long to check in.

Y’all, 2017 was an interesting year. In fact, everything after 2013 has been amazing. I lost 119 pounds, too many clothing sizes to count, so many inches I don’t even know. Through this blog, I shared all the changes I was going through in all of that. Y’all came with me every step of the way.

If you’re following me on Facebook (and you should be), you know that I have the travel bug. Travel is hard on the human body whether you weigh 150 or 350 or are somewhere in between like me. As much as I love going new places, it’s hard on me physically. Usually, at the end of a day of exploring, I find myself waddling or limping back to my hotel room and collapsing in a happy heap…wondering if I couldn’t have done even more if I was in better shape.

As I’ve gone through this process, I’ve also changed. Things that used to motivate me…don’t. Mostly, that number on the scale. I am not interested in focusing on a number.  I don’t give a crap about dropping another marble in the “Pounds Lost” jar. It’s hard to explain, but it feels like I’m looking at it all from the wrong angle.

So what do I care about now? I care about how my butt fits in an airplane seat (and they’re all different). I care about how much walking I can do when my sneaks hit the pavement in London. I care about how well I sleep…and how dehydrated I still get. I care about not getting old before I get old, and about making sure my eyes and my hands work for years to come…because doing needlework gives me joy.

You’ll hear more from me here on the blog than you did in 2017. We’re going to talk about a lot of things, including weight loss, healthy living, travel, and yes…NEEDLEWORK. And a million other topics I can’t even think of. Anything that comes up.

For now, let’s talk about travel. I know I have many readers who don’t travel because of weight. You’ve read horror stories about people being removed from airplanes because they’re too fat, or people being charged for a second seat that they can’t afford. Travel is an amazing gift to give yourselves, peeps. Amazing. I want to help you get past the fear and get out there.

So…let’s talk about travel. In the comments below, give me your travel questions. You can ask me anything, including how big my butt is and whether it fits in the seat. 🙂 I want you to be able to get out there in the world.

If you have a question for me but you’re embarrassed to ask it, just give me a fake name in the comments below. I can’t tell who you are, so make it a fun name and ask the question.

Let’s see those comments!

Hi everyone!

Well, I’ve tried and tried…and I can’t seem to get back into the rhythm of writing blog posts. As if you’re sending not-so-subliminal messages, my readers tend to not comment on the blog posts anyway. LOL. If I share a link to a new blog post on my Facebook fan page, everyone just comments on Facebook anyway…so why do I need to bring everyone over here?

I’m not saying I’ll never write another blog post, but I didn’t want to leave my website hanging…so if you’re wondering what the hell is going on with me, head over to Facebook. And if you’re one of those folks who doesn’t want to put their personal info on Facebook, that’s okay. Make up a name. Like…Beulah Jones or Vagina Reynolds. No one will ever know. #Genius

Click here to head over to my Facebook fan page. It’s totally action-packed.

http://amzn.to/2rg1r3J